I understand when I use the private window that my history is not stored. I can confirm that the only history I see are the sites I have visited since I restarted my computer today. So why do previous web site addresses from previous days fill in automatically when I have not visited them after shutting down the private window and/or shutting down my computer? I usually have two Brave windows open, one is the private window and the other is not. The web sites I visit on the non-private window are not the same as the one’s for the private window. The history in the non-private window is set to erase on exit.
@PrivateSeaman,
Thank you for reaching out to us.
Apologies but I’m not quite clear on the behavior you’re seeing here. Are you saying that when you’re in a Private browsing window, you still see site suggestions that have been previously cleared in the browser?
Yes. My routine is to use the private window most of the working day. At the end of the day
I shut down Brave private window and Brave non-private window and then shut down my
computer i.e. I turn the computer off. The next day I can open a private window before opening
anything else and begin typing a web site I visited the previous day or even sites I have not
visited for weeks or months before and get autofilled or a list of suggested sites I have previously
visited. I have put up with it for a long time but I am annoyed that private window does not
work as advertised.
Here is a screen shot when I type the letter i in the search box. The first site I visited today in
the private window. The DeepL and the aggienetwork sites I visited today in the non-private window.
The bottom iq site I visited yesterday. The World War I sites and the hard water site I visited last year
and have not returned to them in either the private window or the non-private. Where is are these sites being stored?
Hello,
Thank you for clarifying.
Can you please share one last thing with me — a screenshot(s) of your Clear browsing data --> On exit window the way you have it configured currently?
@PrivateSeaman,
I am assuming that the Browsing history section is typically selected as well to be cleared on exit, is that correct?
I don’t manually go to the browsing history in the private window and delete the history.
I thought that was a “feature” of the private window that it automatically deleted the browsing
history along with cookies, etc. I did notice that the checkbox to clear the history has not been
checked. Seems like if I have to check the box that negates the “feature”.
But is that the problem?
@PrivateSeaman,
Yes, any browsing done in a Private window will not be saved once that window is closed (with the exception of saved bookmarks). However, unless I’m misunderstanding the situation here, it appears that the issue you are encountering is that the Private window is picking up browsing history from browsing made the day before (or in the previous session) that you think shouldn’t be there.
But unless I’m mistaken, that data that you’re see is being pulled from your browser profile — that is, browsing that you’re doing in your standard window is showing up in Private because it is not being deleted on exit.
For example, above you stated the following:
You state that you visited the DeepL website in a non-private window — which is stored in your browsing history and picked up by the Private window and, subsequently not deleted because your browsing history is not set to be deleted on exit.
So, to clarify, a Private window does not save any browsing data created in that Private window once closed, but it can see browsing data held in your standard browsing profile. If you want to continue browsing in this way, but have the Private window not see any browsing data (or save any), then you should instead open and use a guest Window, as a guest window sees no information and saves no information.
Please let me know if this makes sense and/or works for you.
Thank you
I cleared all of my history from standard Brave history. I also changed my search engine from Quant to Brave because
I saw a note in the Brave help saying that certain search engines save a history of my searches. I don’t think Quant does this.
I cleared a list of web sites I wanted to go to on opening standard Brave. Then I shut down standard Brave multiple
times and verified there were no history listings. Then I went back to my private window and entered the
letter i as I did before in a previous email to you. I got a similar list as before but I noticed that the list is made
up of items from my bookmarks. I have a lot of bookmarks. I misunderstood what I was looking at before.
I thought the list was coming from Brave history but now I think it is coming from Brave bookmarks. This is the
first time I realized what it was doing. If this is the way Brave browser works then I don’t think I have a problem.
My main concern was assuming that the private window was no saving my browsing history but seeing sites that
I had visited many months ago. It is true the private window search bar does display previous sites but they are
coming from my bookmarks not my browsing history.
Thanks for spending the time working with me on this. I appreciate it.
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Yes and I probably should have mentioned that as well — bookmark suggestions have the bookmark icon next to them in the drop down:
Glad to hear that there’s nothing to worry about here.
Have a wonderful day.
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